Here we go again

The Department of Agriculture has waved a new suggested retail price (SRP) for onions, which, while not a staple like rice, has become the poster boy of food inflation in these benighted isles.

Here we go again.

I remember a famous line that wet market tinderas used as response to buyers complaining about high prices saying that the newspapers claim prices should not breach a certain amount.

“E di sa dyaryo kayo bumili,” the smart aleck tinderas would retort.

That’s the SRP which the DTI and DA keep announcing, whenever prices get unusually high.

“E di pumila kayo sa Kadiwa,” the tinderas would now say.

These SRP’s simply do not work. Pang-media lamang. Pure optics, bereft of any real value in the marketplace of goods.

The day after DA announced it was “thinking” of a 250 SRP for red onions, the price shot up to 500-600 per kilo in the wet markets, likely higher in the supermarkets.

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The DOH wants to repeat a mistake they and their IATF did in January of 2020.

It announced that they are not recommending stiff measures on visitors coming from China, and will wait and see. The President echoed the DOH line.

It’s déjà vu. Here we go again.

Nag-aarimunhan sa turista and the Chinese New Year, which will begin January 22, hoping that an armada of Chinese visitors will swarm our airports the way they are doing to the West Philippine Sea.

In 2020, when alarm bells were ringing all over Asia about the Wuhan virus called COVID-19 (19 because it was discovered in the last months of 2019), we hesitated from banning, or even checking arriving tourists for infection.

As last as the first week of February (the Chinese New Year in the Year of the Rat 2020 began January 25) , visitors from Fujian were allowed to wander around Davao, and another planeload disembarked at the NAIA.

At the very least, we should be testing visitor arrivals for COVID or whatever variant from the mainland at the ports of entry, as they are doing elsewhere in the world.

Tourist traffic will rise again, if we do things right, and every sector in the industry cooperates. Never mind if the Chinese will not swarm our isles these lunar new year holidays.

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Many readers and friends reacted to our article about walkways last December 29. Indeed, you can think of more busy thoroughfares where walkways can be constructed quickly and cost-effectively.

The idea isn’t even novel, after all. Many have proposed it in the past.

The point is, we need to encourage people to walk or bike, but they have to do it safely.

In Metro Manila, people want to ride every possible contraption, including those rickety human-paddled trisikads to move their lazy bodies instead of walking 500 meters.

Construct these walk and bike over-lanes instead of the ultra-expensive subway that is bogged down now because of right-of-way conflicts, pushing its completion target to as far out as 2030.

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There are only two districts in the capital city of Manila which tourists frequent: the fifth and the third.

The fifth is where Intramuros, Ermita, and the National Museum along with Roxas Boulevard are located; the third is where the oldest Chinatown in the world sits.

And at the risk of incurring the ire of other cities in the national capital region, I think Manila is about the only touristic part of the metropolis, with its colonial Old World charm and quaint Chinatown district.

Of course, shoppers will find Makati and San Juan attractive too, but hey, tourists other than balikbayans would rather shop for better and cheaper merchandise in Hong Kong or Bangkok.

Straddling most of the Chinatown area are detritus-filled streams called esteros.

After cleaning them up, I suggest my city’s officialdom to consider covering these with concrete slabs, sturdy enough to support two-story steel parking contraptions, and then close Ongpin, Misericordia, Padilla, and other streets to vehicular traffic, except for timed merchandise delivery schedules.

Using local granite (yes, we have these in the Ilocos), or getting Fujian where most Chinoys originally migrated from, to donate granite blocks, and re-pave Chinatown’s road with.

Get the store owners to come up with tastefully designed facades (let me emphasize the word “tastefully”) and replace the streetlamps with 19th century vintage lampposts (similar to what Isko Moreno did in Jones Bridge).

Think Penang in Malaysia, or Hoi An and Hainan in Vietnam, even the environs of Singapore’s Chinatown, or sponsor a façade-design contest among UST, FEU, St. Benilde and other Manila universities known for architecture and creative courses.

And make Chinatown a mostly pedestrianized area, with facsimiles of the streetcars of yore the only other mode of intra-mobility, as well as horse-drawn caruajes or carretelas.

As for Intramuros and Luneta, may I suggest that Manila officials be more pro-active in their participation over tourism agencies under the DOT, such as the National Parks office, the Intramuros Administration and TIEZA, to come up with a holistic and tastefully crafted plan for the areas supervised by these national agencies crafted only during the Marcos’ pere era.

After all, these DOT agencies are always cash-strapped, while the City of Manila has comparatively ample funds to supplement the meager budgets of these agencies.

The key word in all these suggestions is good “taste,” with an eye to our history.

Maybe the office of the presidential adviser on creative affairs, or whatever Paul Soriano’s title is, the National Museum director, and the DOT agencies together with the city officialdom, can make certain that “taste” and not egregiously crass “development” is observed.

My two cents worth for a 2023 wish list.

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A French expat in the Philippines had this to say about rich people and politicians flaunting their wealth, which we wrote about last Thursday, 2022.

In his country and most parts of Europe, politicians and bishops are never seen with Rolexes and Patek Philippe on their wrists.

Wives of prominent people never post their Hermes and LV’s in instagrams, or the voters will punish their husbands in the next election.

It is considered scandalous and in poor taste. Ostentoire ey pretentieux, they say.

My Spanish teacher used to describe it as “una falta de urbanidad.”

Words, even in Pilipino, hardly capture the exact description for such insensitive show-offishness.

More wishes for 2023 in the next article.

Meanwhile, even if the signs are not too good, let’s count our blessings, and hope that, as in previous crises, we will survive.